How to Provide the best care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals
Target Audience:
Experts in Sexual Medicine with limited knowledge of transgender health who might be addressing care for individuals presenting for treatment for gender incongruence or for other sexual medicine issues
Learning objectives:
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Become up-to-date on terminology in the field of transgender health
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Understand the controversy surrounding diagnosis and diagnostic criteria
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Learn basic elements of providing care for transgender and gender diverse individuals
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Become familiar with the WPATH Standards of Care.
Description of the session:
This Ask the Expert session is designed for sexual medicine experts who are interested in learning more about providing care for transgender and gender diverse individuals who seek treatment for gender incongruence. It is also designed for sexual medicine experts who are providing a variety of sexual medicine treatments and want to increase their culture competence and humility in working with transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals. We will review issues of terminology, diagnostic controversies, diagnostic criteria and basic elements of providing care and assist dignity and positive gender belonging to this population. Finally, we will review basic elements of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Standards of Care.
The Experts leading this session
Eli Coleman, PhDUSA
Eli Coleman, PhD is professor and director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. He holds the first and only endowed academic chair in sexual health.
He is the author of numerous articles and books on compulsive sexual behavior, sexual offenders, sexual orientation, gender dysphoria, chemical dependency and family intimacy and on the psychological and pharmacological treatment of a variety of sexual dysfunctions and disorders. Professor Coleman is one of the founding editors of the International Journal of Transgenderism and is the founding and current editor of the International Journal of Sexual Health.
He is one of the past-presidents of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the World Association for Sexual Health, the International Academy for Sex Research and the Society for Sex Therapy and Research. He is currently the Chair of the WPATH Standards of Care Revision Committee.
He has been a frequent technical consultant on sexual health issues to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (the regional office of WHO), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the US Surgeon General's Exemplary Service Award for his role as senior scientist on Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior, released in 2001. He was given the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the Alfred E. Kinsey Award by the Midcontinent Region of the SSSS in 2001 and in May of 2011, he received the John Money Award from the Eastern Region of the SSSS. In April, 2007, he was awarded the Gold Medal for his lifetime contributions to the field of sexual health by the World Association for Sexual Health. He was appointed the first endowed Chair in Sexual Health at the University of Minnesota Medical School in May 2007. In May of 2009, he was awarded the Masters and Johnson Award by the Society for Sex Therapy and Research. Most recently, he was honored as the inaugural United States Sexual Health Award at the National Sexual Health Conference (2019).
Esther Esben Pirelli Benestad, MDNorway
Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad MD, specialist in clinical sexology NACS, family therapist IAP, professor emerit UiA.
University of Agder, Grimstad MPAT-Institute, Norway
Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad (72) is a professor emerit (no gendered ending) working actively as a clinician in the field of sexology at Grimstad MPAT-Institute. They is also an active partaker in ongoing debates on sexual and gender rights. Benestad has alone or in cooperation with their wife prof. Elsa Almås authored numerous professional articles, several textbooks, many newspaper and journal articles. They is also frequently used by written, spoken and screen media on questions concerning sexuality, gender, ethics and spirituality.
Benestad published their first articles on TGD issues in 1985/86 and has ever since been active in sexological context both nationally and internationally. They have toured several countries giving performance lectures on gender euphoria and screening the movie “All about my father” directed by their son Even Benestad.
They is presently secretary general of the European Federation for Sexology and secretary for TGD affairs in World Association for Sexual Health. Benestad has received many prices and many honorary memberships. One particular price nominated by the patient organization for gender incongruence, carries their name: Esben Esther, and this year they was awarded the Gold Medal for their lifetime contributions to the field of sexual health by the World Association for Sexual Health.
As a TGD person themselves, Benestad also works as an activist which primary aim is to both battle the existent- and work to improve the official health care offers to TGD people in Norway. They themself see approximately 300 unique transtalented individuals pr. year. They have coined several words and concepts apt to induce dignity in transtalented individuals, this as opposed to both discrimination and pathologization. The words and concepts are in addition to transtalent: Transgifted, transesthetics, gender euphoria, gender belonging.
Cecilia Dhejne, MD, PhDSweden
Cecilia Dhejne, MD, PhD, Board Certified Psychiatrist, Specialist in Clinical Sexology NACS, and Fellow of the European Committee of Sexual
ANOVA Andrology, Sexual Medicine, Transgender Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital
Department of Medicine Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, both Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Cecilia Dhejne is a member of the World and European Professional Association for Transgender Health. She has worked in transgender health for almost 25 Years. She is Head of the Gender Team at ANOVA a center of expertise in Andrology Sexual Medicine and Transgender Medicine at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm Sweden.
She has authored more than 18 articles on everything from quality of life, sexuality and mental health, to outcomes and fertility options. In 2011 she published a seminal study on the long-term results of sexual reassignment surgery among Swedish trans people which, to date has been read over 700,000 times and cited by 289 other articles. She has also participated in the text revision of DSM-5 and contributed to the development of Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines (CDDG) for ICD-11 Mental, Behavioural, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders and related areas.
A leader in the public dissemination of research, she has discussed this and other of her articles in various outlets, including Reddit and interviews with leading transgender community publications." She has also been awarded the trans hero of 2016 for her work regarding improving transgender health care by the trans organization Full Personality Expression Sweden (FPES)
